Quote of the Day

September 6, 2013 — Ron Chusid

“You know what, folks? I miss George W. Bush. That man knew how to sell a war. Obama has hard evidence of weapons of mass destruction and he can’t even get England to go along with it. Meanwhile, President Bush got an international coalition with nothing more than Colin Powell’s reputation and half a test tube of crystal light.” –Stephen Colbert

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Main point from the essay:

“Those who take that position should at least ask hard questions about the source and reliability of the intelligence information. Specifically, they should insist on knowing how much of the information was gathered directly by U.S. intelligence agencies and how much was obligingly provided by third parties who have their own policy agendas and ulterior motives.”

I’ve always questioned the Bush administration/neocon argument that they were acting on bad intelligence. There was ample reason before the war to question whether Saddam had WMD on hand which posed a threat. I think that they wanted the war and either cited evidence they knew to be faulty or they allowed themselves to be deceive by faulty data which supported their position. Either they were liars or incompetent.

At least in the case of Syria we at least know that chemical weapons were used (although there is some question as to who was responsible for their use).